Lifestyles

One piece of the puzzle is missing from the aging in place trend -- healthcare. The nation's healthcare system is simply not designed to help seniors remain living independently, says Laura Gitlin, director of the Center for Applied Research on Aging and Health at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. "We know what helps people," she says. "What helps them age in place is not covered by insurers at this point."

Many government and private organizations offer information and assistance for seniors who want to remain in their own homes. Supportive services programs for naturally occurring retirement communities (NORC): * United Jewish Communities offers a description of the role of supportive services programs and a list of 40 specific communities that are part of its nationwide Aging in Place Initiative: www.norcs.

For generations, the French upper classes made leisurely weekend lunches in the gardens of their country homes a hallmark of the "art of living well." On languid afternoons, they arrayed long outdoor tables with platters and tart molds imprinted with family monograms and crests; dessert arrived on trays splashed with vivid portraits of animals, and coffee came in pots decorated with fruits and flowers.

In the summer of 2003, Austin Highsmith, a young actress from North Carolina, packed a suitcase and drove cross-country in pursuit of the Hollywood dream. Years followed, as they do, of waiting tables and auditions, until February when the 27-year-old finally landed her first big break as a guest star on CBS' "Ghost Whisperer." But as luck had it, her episode aired the same week the writers strike began. Hardly any Hollywood honchos saw it.

There's no conniving Amanda Woodward -- Heather Locklear's "Melrose Place" character -- in the building. Not yet, anyway. But residents of the Rob Clark, a new condo conversion in West Hollywood, say life there often imitates the campy '90s TV show where the overwrought dramas of successful, wildly attractive twentysomethings played out inside an L.A. apartment complex.

Weight loss requires an overhaul of diet, exercise, essentially your entire life. But putting off these changes is a national pastime. Eating right and exercising is better done next week because today -- just isn't the right time. To lose weight, say experts in nutrition and weight loss, you have to be ready to make changes, even small ones.

Bonnie SHERIFF, 26, left Kansas for California to attend Caltech in 2003. In the process, she chucked her typical Midwestern meat-and-potatoes diet and decided to slim down, going from about 180 pounds in high school to 127 now. The doctoral candidate, who lives in Pasadena, exercises about three to four times a week and sticks to a diet heavy on whole grains, fruits and vegetables. Once an asthma sufferer, she says she now has "virtually no symptoms" and has increased energy and stamina.

Eight years ago, Dave Dixon set himself some lofty goals, especially for an unemployed, twice-divorced middle-aged man with no savings. He wanted to live on the water in Newport Beach. He didn't care to work too much. And he aspired to play golf and tennis several times a week. Today, Dixon, 60, is living his dream, albeit with some compromises. He lives aboard a weathered, beat-up 37-foot mahogany boat he bought on a credit card for $10,000.

Artist Kharlene Boxenbaum knows the power of a focal point. At her modern Beverly Hills home, it's the 23-foot-long steel plinth, covered in quartz CaesarStone, that seems to float from her patio into the landscape. Boxenbaum thinks of the shimmery surface, a gathering spot for parties and barbecues, as "functional sculpture." "It has a kind of James Turrell look," she says, referring to the artist who uses light and indeterminate space to extend and enhance perception.